Lonely and restless, as I have been lately —
My instincts surprised me and said, find a yoga class, now,
tonight. It had been more than a year since my last one, but:
a place to be with other humans
without worrying about having
to talk or shake hands, just a place to be (sweat
and breathe) with other humans, it sounded,
and was, just right. Nights like this are why
I trust myself these days, knowing I am no poison
I am my own cure, this heart that
knows what I need and will say,
go to yoga
come back to your body, do what is
familiar and dripping with sweat
come home to your body
again

Some things your brain will not permit you to think about until you are in a place where it is truly permissible, where you have free mental space. I have gained some of that recently.

Forgotten:

• In the spring semester of my freshman year, when I myself am in the beginning of a year-long depressive episode, three alumni commit suicide. At least two of them are gay.

• The trigger for the last major relapse of my eating disorder there: being set up with a friend of a friend. A cool and respectable Wheaton dude; I didn't know why it made me feel so terrified and despairing, but I promised myself I would get sick again and make it go away.

Waiting to be discovered:

• That professor with the fresh, shiny, postmodern explanation for why gay people don't really exist that all the more liberal students swallowed so eagerly? He based his argument entirely on concepts appropriated directly from queer theory, but failed both to give credit and to mention that the gay scholars who created those concepts had found it possible to follow them to different conclusions.